A Family and a Fortune (24 page)

‘Look at that and keep it in your heart,' said Justine, pulling the curtain further. ‘Of what do you consider that a sign? What kind of an omen?'

Dudley had gone, and Edgar and Maria were walking together.

‘Is not Uncle sharing everything even as Father has shared it?'

‘Uncle has his own ways of sharing. He may withdraw it at his pleasure.'

‘Even their married lives are at the disposal of each other. It is a sobering and cheering thing.'

‘Boys,' said Aubrey, blinking and pointing to the window, ‘what of the lesson of another pair of brothers?'

‘And they are walking in step,' pursued Justine, bending over the sill, ‘Uncle's brother and future wife. Is not that prophetic? I choose to see it so.'

Clement came to her side and stood looking down with her.

‘May you be able to abide by your choice.'

‘Away now,' said Justine, resuming her ordinary voice. ‘Away to your daily employment. We must not go on dreamily, self-indulgently, deaf to the normal demands of life. Father has set us the example. He is up and about and turning his eyes on the future. At who knows what cost
to himself? We must not be behind him, who has so much more to face. He hears the call of life and obeys it.'

Edgar looked up as if feeling eyes upon him.

‘They are watching us, those four who are my charge and whom I know so little. My brother has taken too much of my life, and you will not find that hard to understand. I must use the time I shall have to myself, to get to know my children. It may be too late to do anything except for myself.'

Maria did not realize the unusual freedom of his words.

‘You may find that you know them better than you think. It may be difficult to live with people and not know them, anyhow young people. I think we seem to know them when anything brings them out. Have you often been surprised by these?'

‘I think perhaps I have not. I think they are themselves under any test. And if I have not served them much, I have made little demand. I have not much debt to pay. It might speak better for me if I had. I have not set myself apart from the normal relations of life, and I should have done better in them.'

‘Justine will solve many problems for you and will make none.'

‘Perhaps that in itself may be a problem.'

‘You do not often find people good all through as she is.'

‘You like my Justine?' said Edgar, with what he felt should be his feeling.

‘I like good people,' said Maria, with the simplicity which in her had its own quality, something which might have been humour if she could have been suspected of it. ‘I never think people realize how well they compare with the others.'

‘You have thought about people?'

‘I have been a great deal alone and perhaps thought more than I knew. I should have learned more by meeting them.'

‘You must help me, if Dudley will let you. And I see that he will.'

‘I will if I can. I have been afraid of coming between you.'

‘You can hold us together from there. Dudley has put you
between us. I do not know what I should do if he had not.

It helps me to face the future, to face my double loss. I feel there is something - someone in the place.'

Justine turned from the window as her uncle entered..

‘Uncle!' she said, extending her hand towards the scene below.

‘Perfect. To think that I am the possessor of all that!'

‘It is all yours. Your full meed was delayed to come at last. When I look at those two tall figures, walking in step as if they would walk so all their lives, I see you between them, still walking somehow self-effacingly, there to do your part by both. I take it as an augury.'

‘Perhaps I am marrying for the sake of others. I could not think of myself at such a time. If I could, I might feel that I was doing so, or other people might. I don't suppose we ever feel that we are thinking of ourselves.'

‘Do you think we do not know you, Uncle?'

‘I have been afraid you were getting to know me.'

‘Go your way, Uncle. Set your heart at rest. Forget yourself and go forward. If there is any little thing on which you do not like to turn your eyes, turn them from it and pass on. Take your life in your own hands. It is yours.'

‘You are certainly getting to know me.'

‘I declare this is the first time that I have felt cheerful since Mother left us. But the sight of Father with you and Maria - yes, I will say the name - has helped me to it. I feel I can emulate you and go forward.'

‘I can't be so very bad, if you are going to be the same.'

Justine walked out of the room as if carrying out her words, and passed her brothers on the landing.

‘Yes, it is a fascinating spectacle. I don't blame you for standing with your eyes riveted to it. But do not let it be a snare to lure you from righteousness. Life will be rushing by and leaving us in a backwater. Father has embarked upon the stream. We must not be behind him.'

‘Is that what has happened to Father?' said Clement to his brother. ‘Or has the stream sucked him in unawares? It has taken him already some distance. I wonder if he knows.'

‘Knows what?'

‘Is it like Father to wander about alone with a strange woman?'

‘It is like very few of us, but that is not what he is doing.'

There was a pause.

‘When is Uncle going to be married?

‘I don't know. I suppose not too soon after Mother's death.'

Clement remained at the window after his brother had left him. He was to stand there several times in the next two months. At the end of them he came to the room where his sister was alone.

‘Are not Father and Uncle going away in a few days?'

‘Yes. Uncle has to see his godfather's lawyer, who manages his money. It may be about settlements or something. I have not asked. It is between him and Miss Sloane.

‘Then they are going near Grandpa's old home. It was when he and Father were visiting the godfather that Father and Mother met.'

‘Yes, so it was. Yes, they must be going there. It will do Father good to get away alone with Uncle.'

‘But surely this will not be the suitable change for him. Are we simply passing over Mother's death and expecting him to do the same?'

‘Oh, I had not thought. Of course he must not go there. I had forgotten the place. I will speak to Uncle. Poor Father, no wonder he was not very eager over the plan.'

‘Grandpa and Aunt Matty are more and more anxious to sell their house and the furniture they left in it,' said Clement, strolling to the window and twisting the blind cord round in his hand, while his eyes went down to what was beneath. The agent who is supposed to be doing it seems to need some pressure and supervision. Could not Uncle try to put it through and come home a little later? It would put an end to Aunt Matty's talk.'

‘Does she talk so much about it? She must talk to you and not to me. It suggests that I am in disgrace. I daresay Uncle could do it. It is a good idea. We will ask him.'

‘And I believe that Miss Sloane wants something done in her old home.'

‘Well, he will certainly be glad to do that. She can ask him herself; I will remind her. And I will also remind Aunt Matty. It will make a good approach and help to bridge the rift. What a thoughtful boy you grow!'

Clement still twisted the cord.

‘You seem tied to the window in every sense. What is there to be seen from it? If we light upon any uplifting scenes, we are only concerned with them as onlookers. For us there remains the common task.'

‘I am just the person who should not be going away,' said Dudley.

‘Courage, Uncle,' said his niece. ‘Absence makes the heart grow fond. And we will all keep an eye on her for you.'

‘Do you want to give me any instructions as the person in charge?' said Matty.

‘I have not had my own yet. I am waiting to be told to take care of myself and to come back as soon as I can. I must take the will for the deed, though that always seems to be giving people too much credit.'

‘Come away from the hall,' said Justine. ‘Leave the engaged pair to enact their little scene in privacy and peace. They do not want eyes upon them at every moment. Someone give an arm to Aunt Matty.'

‘I think I may stay here, dear. I am not so able-bodied as to keep running away on any pretext. And I am to take Maria home as soon as your uncle has gone.'

‘I think it would be better to forget your office for once. Too duenna-like a course is less kind than it sounds.'

‘It did not sound kind, dear. And the words are not in place. There is nothing duenna-like about me. I have no practice in such things. I have been a person rather to need them from other people.'

‘Yes, I daresay, Aunt Matty. I did not mean the word to be a barbed one. Well, come along, Father. Leave Aunt
Matty to carry out her duty in her own way. It would not be my way, but I must not impose my will on hers.'

‘You can only do your best,' said Mark. ‘And that you have done.'

‘Come, let the engaged couple have anyhow only one pair of eyes upon them.'

‘They are still accustomed to being apart,' said Edgar, as he moved from his place. ‘Their life together is not to begin yet.'

‘No, but common sense will hardly play much part in their feelings at this time. Whatever they feel, logic will not have much to do with it.'

‘If they don't want people's eyes they may not want their tongues.'

‘Father, protect me against this unchivalrous brother.'

Edgar edged by his daughter and walked down the hall. She misinterpreted his abruptness and followed and put her hand through his arm. He shook it off and went on, giving one backward glance.

‘Father's look at Uncle goes to my heart,' she said, as she joined her brothers.

Clement looked at her and did not speak. He also had followed his father's eyes.

‘Some things are too sacred for our sight,' said Aubrey. ‘They can only bear Aunt Matty's.'

‘Yes, that is the inconsistence I can't quite get over,' said Justine. ‘It does not seem fair, but we are not allowed to prevent it.'

‘They have all their lives to be alone with each other,' said Mark.

‘Oh, why can't people see that the whole of their lives has no bearing on this moment?' said his sister, beating her hands against her sides. ‘All those moments added together will not make this one. It is one of the high water marks of life, the first parting after an acknowledged engagement. Why must we be so uncromprehending about it all?'

‘We need not grasp more than is there,' said Edgar, who had returned and now spoke with a smile.

‘I told him that we were all boys together,' said Aubrey, with tears and mirth. ‘That is what he did not like. He tries to think he is a man.'

‘Is anyone hurt?' asked Edgar at the door.

‘No, Father, only someone's feelings. And they are already soothed,' said Justine, encircling Aubrey's head in a manner which for once he welcomed, as it hid his face. ‘So we need not worry you with it.'

Edgar looked at his eldest and youngest children, as they went together from the room.

‘There is a good deal on your sister. I hope you will be a help to her. I will ask you both to do your best. A house like this goes ill without an older woman. It will run for a time of itself as it has been set on its lines. But if any part goes off, the whole must follow. We must support that one of us who may be destined to strive and fail.'

‘I hope that Uncle will live near to us,' said Mark.

‘I hope so; I think he will do his best. But a separate household will not keep this one to its course. I trust the lines may run together; I trust they may.'

Edgar left the house and walked on the path where he was used to walking with his brother. He held his head upright and his hands behind his back, as if seeking a position to replace the old one. His face was still and set, as though he would not yield to any feelings that would cause a change. He looked at his watch, surprised by its slowness, and at once replaced it and walked on.

Justine, watching from a window, left her place and hastened to her room. Coming downstairs in outdoor clothes, she passed her brothers with a sign.

‘Do not ask me where I am going. Do not see me. Do not remember I have gone. Go on with what you are doing and leave me to do the same.'

‘Where is she going?' said Mark. ‘What is the mystery?'

‘I suppose to see Aunt Matty. She may be about to make some scene. It is a good thing to be out of it.'

‘Is Aunt Matty very lonely without Mother?' ‘She must miss the concern which it had taken sixty
years to work up. I should think it could not have been done in less, it is no good for anyone else to begin it.'

‘It is a pity that Grandpa is too old for a companion to Father.'

‘You are less sure of yourself in that character?'

‘That aspect of me does not seem to strike him,' said Mark, with his easy acceptance of the truth. ‘And I hesitate to bring it to his notice.'

‘We shall be a wretched household if Uncle - when Uncle goes. And I shall be obliged to spend more time in it.'

‘You take your usual simple attitude.'

‘What would happen to me if I did not?'

‘You might devote yourself to doing a mother's part by Aubrey.'

‘You might have more success in that part yourself than as a wife for Father.'

‘Successful!' called Justine's voice, as her rapid feet bore her through the hall. ‘Successful and you need not ask in what way. That is in my own heart and I do not need to reveal it. I am content with my own sense of satisfaction.'

Clement paced up and down, silent and as if preoccupied. When Maria came up the drive he glanced through the window, and continued pacing as if unaware of what he had seen.